Given to the Savage(36)

“You’re hurting me, let go of me!” she yelled, trying to free herself.

Silas looked to where his hands gripped her arms too hard. He had to remember how much bigger than her he was, how much stronger. He exhaled and released her, but didn’t step back.

“Watch your tone, Hellcat…” Why had he called her the colony’s property? He didn’t feel that way about her. He had just spent the entire day explaining her presence, fighting for her. He opened his mouth to apologize but she shoved hard at his chest.

“Leave me alone and stop calling me that. My name is Rowan!”

“Your name is what I want it to be and you’ll do as you’re told.”

Rowan raised her arm to slap him, but he caught her wrist and held it tight. “I am your master for as long as you’re here. Remember that.”

“You don’t have to be so mean to me,” she said.

Silas looked at her face, her eyes, and exhaled, then took a step back. “I was worried when I didn’t find you at the clinic,” he said more quietly.

She studied him and exhaled herself. “I’m sorry I worried you. I came straight back.”

He nodded, then looked at the open door behind her. “Was I unclear last night about not going into that particular room?” he asked, pointing to the door she’d just come out from.

She looked frightened for a moment but then folded her arms across her chest and her stance showed only defiance. “I don’t know why it matters, it’s just some dusty old furniture in there.”

If she had been sorry, he would have punished her anyway if only to teach her to obey him. But now, with this attitude, she would endure more than a hand spanking. Taking her by the arm, he dragged her toward the front door where a strap hung from a nail on the wall.

“You want me to strap you so you listen?” he began, taking the strap in his hand. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll strap you.”

“No! Let me go!” she screamed, fighting and scratching at him, trying to get free.

“Bend over the bed and raise your skirt!” he commanded, pushing her to it. But as soon as she was free, she scrambled to her feet and ran toward the back door. Silas made a sound and went after her, catching her easily, and in no time at all, he had her bent over the low bed, the thin cover of her dress the last thing standing between her vulnerable bottom and the leather.

“Let me up!” she yelled, fighting against him, as pointless as she must have known it was. “Let me up! You’re no better than them!”

The bed was low enough that Silas put his knee on her back, trapping her there. “You’ll get double if I have to hold you down to take it. Choose!” he ordered.

Her struggle was his answer and he raised the strap and brought it down hard across her bottom. She screamed but he drew his arm back again and struck a second time, directly beneath the first lash. Rowan clawed at the bed and tried to gain purchase with her feet but her efforts were futile. He struck a third and fourth time, at which point he paused to raise the skirt of her dress and bare her now welted bottom.

“Please!” she called out when he struck again, angry at her defiance, angry that she might have been hurt if one of the villagers who did not want her here harmed her out of fear, angry that she had gone into that room where the remnants of the life that had been torn from him lay collecting dust layered as thick as it had collected over his heart, his entire world.

With the next strokes, he found himself breathing hard, punishing her for her sins but also for those that did not belong to her. It was unfair, he knew it, but he couldn’t stop. When he moved his knee, she scrambled up onto the bed, trying to get away from him. She turned onto her side, her eyes wide on the thick strap, but when he took hold of one ankle and dragged her backward, she squeezed her eyes shut and tucked her fisted hands beneath her chest, knowing she could not escape him.

Without speaking, he punished her. He struck hard, every inch of her bottom and then the tops of her thighs marked with the vicious bite of the unforgiving strap and when she finally lay still and he felt the wet heat of tears collecting in his own eyes, he threw the strap aside.

Rowan whimpered and inched farther up toward the headboard, but Silas climbed onto the bed behind her, lifting her by her hips so that she lay with her face in the mattress, her bare, striped bottom lifted high as he settled between her widespread knees. Without any gentleness, he pressed his thick cock into her pussy.

He wanted to drive into her, to take from her without giving anything back. God knew after whipping her, that that was how he should take her, how he needed to take her. But as he looked down at her still, waiting form, no longer struggling, just waiting, knowing what would now come, he could not. Instead, he reached one hand around and with his cock deep inside her, he found her swollen clit and his fingers grew as wet as his cock in her drenched pussy.